FILE - In this April 1, 2013 file photo, a dove flies near the logo of Novartis India Limited at their head office in Mumbai, India. A new study released Saturday, Aug. 30, 2014, shows an experimental Novartis drug, which does not have a name, lowered the chances of death or hospitalization by about 20 percent. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool, File)

Photo: Rafiq Maqbool, Associated Press

FILE - In this April 1, 2013 file photo, a dove flies near the logo...

An experimental drug has shown striking efficacy in prolonging the lives of people with heart failure and could replace what has been the bedrock treatment for more than 20 years, researchers said Saturday.

The drug, which is being developed by the Swiss company Novartis, reduced both the risk of dying from cardiovascular causes and the risk of being hospitalized for worsening heart failure by about 20 percent in a large clinical trial.

"I think that when physicians see these data, they will find it compelling, and what we will see is a paradigm shift," said Dr. Milton Packer, a professor of clinical sciences at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and one of the two principal investigators in the study.

The results are being presented at the European Society of Cardiology congress in Barcelona, Spain, this weekend and were published Saturday by the New England Journal of Medicine.

Heart failure is a disease in which the heart cannot pump enough blood to the body's organs, resulting in shortness of breath, fatigue and retention of fluids. It can be caused by a heart attack, uncontrolled hypertension or other problems.

Some 5 million to 6 million Americans, and an estimated 26 million people globally, have heart failure, and it is the leading cause of hospitalization in the United States and Europe. Many patients die within a few years of diagnosis.

Some doctors not involved in the study agreed that the results were compelling.

"They are not just positive; they are remarkably positive, and positive in every dimension," said Dr. Clyde Yancy, chief of the cardiology division at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. "Patients with heart failure are eager, if not desperate, to have better options."

Novartis executives say the company will file for approval of the drug, known by the code name LCZ696, in the U.S. by the end of the year and in Europe in the first quarter of 2015. That means the drug could get to patients as early as next year.

The study, sponsored by Novartis, involved more than 8,400 patients in 47 countries.

Dr. Marc Pfeffer, a Harvard Medical School cardiologist who was not involved in the trial but has done research funded by Novartis, said it was impressive that LCZ696 could improve on existing therapy.

"It really is an advance, and we haven't had one in a long time because the bar really is high," he said.